Umar Qamar, the founder of Export Leftovers (ELO) started his entrepreneurial journey from his father’s textile business and later on brought the leftover goods from various shipments to online platforms with very low prices and targeted the low-income class with quality products. It became a success story after a while as it was a process innovation at that time and no one was doing it.
He started with one textile unit of his father and now he works with various manufacturers in different parts of the country. Factories come to him and sell their leftovers from their exports. ELO further sell this item over the internet with very little margin and is by far the only authentic online retail platform to buy export quality clothing items in Pakistan. Umar set out to plug this gap in the market and Export Leftovers (ELO) was born.
In his interview with Startup Insider, he mentioned that always play on your strengths which is ‘quality of the product and pricing in this case. He further stated that team management and coordination are very important to be on the same page as far as eCommerce is concerned because “same-day-delivery” is the next competitive advantage companies are striving for.
He is a strong believer in customer feedback because customer trust is the main key to selling online. In Pakistan customer doesn’t trust online sellers and request various methods to check the quality of the product and still, the most common payment delivery option is cash on delivery. So, online sellers should address the problems of the customers to win their trust. In response to a question about the success of the upcoming entrepreneurs with no investment or resources, he replied, “if you solve a problem of the customers then you will be successful.
As such, the Gap analysis in the market and identification of a problem and then proposing a solution to that problem while charging a minimal fee for the solution – is the recipe. This is the only way to succeed as an entrepreneur. So, generate value for all the stakeholders and produce a win-win situation for everyone. Collaboration is always better than the competition. We began collaborating with factories and these collaborations helped the company reach a much larger market, which introduced a massive volume of new customers\”.
When you first start out, it’s great to produce and sell products for a targeted niche group of customers. This is exactly how Umar started Export Leftovers… by selling export quality clothes at the lowest prices to people in Pakistan. But when you’re ready, one of the best ways to achieve growth is to expand your market.
